Bob Leahy talks to New York poz guy Charles Sanchez, producer, writer and star of Merce, a TV web series that’s been compared to "Seinfeld with HIV".

"Merce, is about a middle aged, HIV+ guy living in NYC, and it's a musical comedy! And here's the subversive part: it's not sad and no one dies.
As an HIV+ man, I've been starving for a story about HIV that isn't sad. The show is bright, colorful, campy and fun. Each episode is less than 10 minutes long, and each has an original musical number. The goal of the show is to present a fresh idea of what a person with HIV looks like, and to add some humor into the conversation about HIV. After all

Tom Hayes (UKPositiveLad ) editor-in-chief of BeyondPositive says “The jokes in themselves aren’t necessarily a problem, it’s the impact they may have, depending on who hears them. So please, think before you joke.”

Let me prefix this opinion piece by saying this topic is something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, but I’ve never really been able to express it properly – so I’m just going for it.
HIV is a bitch. Let’s get that out of the way. It’s a cruel, opportunistic virus that (left untreated) ravages your body and the stigma from others, and even yourself, can ruin lives.
One of the ways that we as humans, and me in particular, cope with adversity is to make light of the s

We told the tale of Chistopher Sale, a Catholic brother from Califonia battling to keep his calling, in May 2012. Now he’s back with his take on humour as the best medicine.

It is the fifth anniversary of my living with AIDS. I wrote about my personal experience of having AIDS marking my four year anniversary of living with this so called dreadful disease last April. Well, it is now five years and counting and despite my medical downfalls I've adapted to making this journey a little less depressing and a little more humorous. I liken myself to Morris, the cat with 9 lives. Or considering my age, Old Man River, since I just keep rolling along.
I find it humorous

Brian Finch looks back on a year of new paths, new directions.

So much has changed in a year. It would be this time last year I received an email from someone I knew at The Stephen Lewis Foundation requesting I participate in their Dare Campaign. It's a pledge campaign to raise money based on a dare, not dissimilar to The Breast Cancer Walk etc.
My challenge was stand-up. I'd wanted to do it but was too chicken shit to do so. I had comic friends and had played with improv. But the thought of going up and bombing was too frightening. Whe

Christopher Banks on the touchy subject of making fun of AIDS

“Dom, your song was so gay I’m pretty sure I just got AIDS from listening to it.”
How does that sentence make you feel? If you were on a bus and overheard some idiot teenagers saying it, you might be angry. You might be brave enough to say something. You could be intimidated into silence. As you hear the group laugh, you may shrink down further into your seat and feel like an insect at the bottom of a sewer.
But how would you feel if you heard this broadcast on a national rad

Michael Yoder, a veteran of the AIDS movement, on the value of the stories of long term survivors says ‘it is within their collective memories that you can understand how much better is today.”

When I was asked to write something about being a long term survivor, my first thought was “Nooooo!!!!!” There are so many different perspectives and experiences for all of us who are long term survivors that’s it’s really impossible to capture any great meaning. I can simply offer what I have learned and observed over the past number of years. I’m not a historical expert on HIV; I’m not a social anthropologist. I’m just a dumb, white, gay guy that’s been around for a while.
I

Guest writer Jim Swimm: “I could get angry, ranting and raving at every offensive reference to HIV/AIDS, or find another approach. Is it possible to keep my sense of humor while trying to educate and raise awareness".

There are few issues about which I feel more strongly than HIV/AIDS awareness and I take my advocacy/activism quite seriously, for a variety of reasons both globally-effective and intimately personal. I've found Twitter to be a fantastic resource for me in finding individuals, charity organizations, and hospitals/research centers to educate myself, lend support, and a million other uses when it comes to the disease. I cannot recommend it enough in this regard.
But...there's a downside, of cou

Funerals can be funny. Or at least NotDownNotOut thinks so. Here’s what he wants for his own.

I attended a funeral recently. I am of an age where I have had the luxury of not needing to attend a great many funerals in my short life – this is deemed a good thing, but I am still intrigued by these mysterious occasions and they continue to fascinate me. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or non-denominational – whatever the faith (or not) I don’t discriminate, they all follow traditions which are socially understood within their respective communities and there is no instruction manual of